


Codename: Sailor Dee

by davey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Always Female Castiel, Always Female Dean, Always Female Sam, F/F, Gen, No Sex, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:31:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/davey/pseuds/davey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deanna Winchester was never interested in all the gossip and glamour of the Caretakers, a group of women who claimed to be called by God and given powers to fight the monsters that attacked and preyed on humanity. All she wanted was to be the best sister and daughter she could, to do well enough in seventh grade to get her exclusive electives, and maybe to work on the car her father left for her after he died. But it turns out there's a second breed of Caretakers, the ones who destiny finds outright, and Deanna finds herself on a mission shared only by one other person on the planet (who happens to be over four hundred miles away) and in direct conflict with the other Caretakers (who seem to be more interested in fame and merchandise than saving people) and the police. All while trying to stop the Apocalypse the way the memories of a past life swear she can, saving as many people as possible from the real monsters and demons and ghosts, keep a secret identity, being a positive hero to Sam, and balance school, chores, and extracurriculars, and maybe try to find time to date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Codename: Sailor Dee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PoolWatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoolWatcher/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Star of Fate Inside](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050770) by [PoolWatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoolWatcher/pseuds/PoolWatcher). 



> Couldn’t’ve done it without Disc, who beta’d the fic and coloured my line arts and let me ramble about ideas for a fandom she isn’t in, and dedicated to Jill, as a prequel to her excellent fusion universe A Star of Fate Inside and basically it’s meant to be the Sailor V to her Sailor Moon. This is going to be thirteen chapters according to the notes, and this will be the shortest chapter.
> 
> I can’t believe how hard it is to write something canon compliant with two separate verses as well as a crossover verse. But I had a lot of fun with it, too.

Deanna wasn’t on any teams besides co-ed wrestling or in any clubs besides Engineering, although, she was considering doing more. She was probably the best athlete in school, and most of the teachers doubling as coaches were scouting for her to join their teams. She was thinking about volleyball or softball, and maybe some extracurriculars, but she wasn’t really thinking about it too much. She had to stay home and watch her sister, after all- Sammy was only nine, and kinda a nerd, so she needed someone to think she was cool. And Deanna did.

So that was why she was only trying to impress on her grades, not her teachers, when she was doing the high jump test. High jumps were the easiest thing: a bar was held up four feet suspended with lined rulers on the poles to mark the apex of the jump, and there was a nice, two feet thick and cushy landing mat pressed up against the suspension poles, and the goal was to go over the bar backwards and arched to not hit it. The method was something like taking three steps forward at a run, and leaping up at the third with a knee pointed the direction to go, entire body following the knee after pushing off the ground, and finally landing almost in a flop.

One

Two

Three

Five feet easy and a perfect landing.

It was that simple.

Or it would’ve been, if she hadn’t been aiming her knee but forgetting to push off with her foot because she saw just a glimpse of something glittering in the bushes, and fell backwards against the mat and hit the bar with her shoulder as she wobbled for balance and to not twist her ankle. She knocked over the bar in the attempt to not hurt herself because she’d gotten her feet mixed up, and disqualified her jump.

On the plus side, messing up a gym during a demonstatrion made the teachers watching her shake their heads and walk away instead of pressure her to join basketball or softball or soccer or whatever. Once she recovered from her landing, she rolled off the pad and went to the reflected light, poking around in the bush and eventually finding…

A pen? A really shiny, metallic pen. Looked expensive, which, she didn’t get much that was, so why not keep it? It was green metal with gold accents, which must’ve been what caught the light, and a small crescent moon made of a darker gold, like it was cut with copper instead of nickel. Deanna rolled it in her hands, looking for an engraved name and pocketing it with a shrug when she found nothing. When she tried to stand back up, however, she found a small purse, made of green metallic fabric that was soft and cool to the touch and matched the green metals perfectly. She sighed and picked it up to check for identification, because obviously the pen had spilled from there.

Of course she couldn’t just find something nice and keep it for herself. But there were no identifying items in the purse, just a small matching box for the pen, and a calculator, and a compact mirror shaped like a crescent moon, all made from the same metals, reddish gold with green metal accents, and even a few emeralds here and there. If anything, they were  _too_  nice for her, but she sorta wanted to keep them, because she was in advanced math classes and could use a calculator, and because she’d always wanted one of those really good, really nice pens, and the mirror just matched the set. She’d never be able to afford them all. And she’d check later for lost and found, because obviously stuff this expensive, someone’d put out a claim for it, but she could pretend for a little while.

She didn’t bother to open the mirror, just took them all, packed them in the purse, and went back to the bleachers. She was pretty popular, despite the fact she never really spent time with the rest of the class and only talked to them when they talked to her, so when the other girls asked about what she found, she was able to be aloof about it, and left the rest of the class to take back to her bag at her desk after a quick shower and uniform change. Since it was a pretty basic calculator instead of one of those ones that did all the work, she pulled it out later for math during a busy work section. She was good at the simple math, sure, but she really wanted an excuse to use her new pretty toy.

It would’ve worked out fine if it hadn’t been one of those ones that had letters as well as numbers, and she was surprised to find that between gym and Algebra 1, it had started typing messages.

<< _Did you find it?_ >>

<< _Are you reading this?_ >>

<< _Are you there?_ >>

<< _You have work to do._ >>

<< _Did you use the mirror yet? Have you seen yourself? It reflects the true self._ >>

<< _Have you spoken to your mother?_ >>

To be perfectly honest, the first four were strange but ignorable, the fifth was downright creepy, and the sixth, terrifying.

Deanna had not spoken to her mother that day. It was an early shift day for Mary, so there was breakfast on the table, then she’d walked to school after walking Sammy to elementary school. She was going to pick Sammy up, take her to get some snacks, maybe visit an arcade, then go home in time for supper and homework, and at some point, her mother would come home.

<< _Have you spoken to your mother?_ >>

Not parents.

Deanna was the only person in her class who didn’t have a father to talk to.

She was the only one the message could’ve been for. So why not see how deep the rabbit hole went, since she apparently fell in it already?

<< _Mom was at work when I left home. She’ll be home for dinner._ >>

She wasn’t expecting a reply. To be fair, she hadn’t been expecting a message at all.

<< _You have work to do. There’s been a monster upsurge in Lawrence._ >>

<< _Lady of Letters’ll handle it. She always does._ >> She wasn’t a fan of any of the Caretakers like most of the girls in her class, and far too many of the boys, but she did follow them a little, and Lady of Letters was the powerhouse one, right? She didn’t even know. Sam’s favourite was Mystic, but Mystic was less of a fighter and more of a support or something.

<< _Lady of Letters is not strong enough to face what’s coming. We need you because your mission is more important than hers. They are coming. And you need to protect the vessels. When I call again, I’ll tell you what to do. But it will be soon. Perhaps today. Be vigilant._ >>

Okay, there was literally nothing there that made any sense to her. So she put it back in its purse and decided to just freehand the math, which was pretty basic stuff anyway.

It was a cute purse. Sammy might like it, except Sammy was too young for purses.

It also wasn’t a good idea to be playing with purses during math class when the teacher was pissed off she wasn’t joining her softball team, so she went back to her work. Math was her last class after gym, so she’d go out, get Sammy, get snacks. She had enough money for some ice cream, but maybe if she pooled with Sammy they could go to a diner and get pie. That’d mean no arcade, though. She’d ask.

It looked like it was going to rain, though, so maybe they’d just head home. She could always make a pie, if they had filling. She could always get filling.

Plus she could sneak in the garage and work on Dad’s car. She used to love sitting with him, learning all about how to take care of the fourth most important thing in her daddy’s life, third for the four years they didn’t have Sammy. She was good with cars, all machines really.

She actually studied up on cars.

Crap, her mom would probably want her to study. She had a history test soon, right? She should get a dayplanner for her new purse.

Oh, great, now it was _her_ purse.

When she’d turned in the in class work (third fastest in class, even with all the calculator playing) she grabbed the damn bag and her backpack, and set off to get Sammy.

Her curiosity got the better of her as she walked to the elementary school, and she started to type into the calculator again. << _So was it me you wanted? Really?_ >>

<< _Deanna Henrietta Winchester,_ >> it typed back. << _Aquarius, born January 24, currently thirteen years old and in the seventh grade. Oldest daughter of Mary Winchester nee Campbell and John Winchester, deceased. One sibling, Samantha, aged nine. Destined to be the most beautiful and graceful woman on the planet, a strong and capable leader. Open the compact, you’ll understand._ >>

‘ _Here goes nothing,_ ’ she told herself as she opened it. The reflection was not her- It was her face, sure, and she was the only girl in school with that colour hair and it looked like it went down to the girl in the mirror’s waist, just like hers did. But the girl in the mirror wasn’t wearing her clothes. Deanna was wearing her school uniform, having changed from gym back to the school’s grey sweatervests and blue ascots and button-ups and blue hemmed grey above-the-knee pleated skirts.

The girl in the mirror was wearing a mask and a choker and some sort of shoulder padded armour and a weird collar on her shirt. There was a bright gold coloured bow, that matched the gold on the compact and the pen and the calculator, and the armour pads had dark green stripes at the edges, and the collar was green, too, but much lighter.

Deanna tried not to wear green. It made her freckles stand out more, and she hated them- the girl in the mirror had them, too, but she looked good in green, her freckles didn’t stand out jarringly. God, she hated having them, it was why she didn’t wear make-up, too, because it was too much work to cover them up and lipstick and eye shadow just made them stand out. The girl in the mirror didn’t seem to mind her shiny pink lip gloss, and her make-up looked subtle, like it accentuated her. Maybe she was just wearing the lip gloss, Deanna couldn’t tell.

Deanna licked her lips because she wondered what flavours that shade came in, and the girl in the mirror did, too.

She couldn’t possibly be the same girl, could she? No, she knew who the girl was.

“Huntress,” she whispered, almost completely silent, as she looked at her. It was as if the word were a key opening a locked floodgate, or a trigger pulled so that something shot directly at the lock, and she clutched at a nearby wall after dropping the compact until she settled for leaning against it, her head starting to ache as memories flooded in. Hazy memories, of a completely different world. Of women with wings and swords who helped humans, tapping her on her shoulders and assuring her it was her destiny, declaring her the guardian of love and beauty and warrior of metal, the greatest huntress throughout all time. Of earning the title through blood and stalking and hunting, archery and swordsmanship and net-trapping and spearfishing, trapping and cleaning and taking trophies. There were so many competitions and she’d won them all to earn the title.

All of these memories were set to a backdrop of moonlight, growing darker and darker as she aged and stalked her way to the acclaim, to knightships and declarations by women with wings. The moon started normal, but one day instead of waxing from the new moon in shrinking shadows, the dark turned from shadow to active oceans, and instead of light causing the shadows to lessen, the oceans would rain down on the Earth, bleeding glowing cascades of crimson blood instead of emitting reflective sunlight, disturbing and still so strangely, hauntingly beautiful. The skies would grow red and dark and clouded the further along the bloody rains got, and there were pools and rivers of eerily glowing red blood all over the forests she hunted, but nothing else was a problem- in fact, it was a good omen, a happy portent, a time of great joy for the people. The blood enriched the waters and the soil, lives were longer, people were less sick. It was like the blood was lifeblood. Society was blessed to have it, and culture reflected it, and things were good for everyone, even if they’d started off afraid.

Words echoed in her head, like a proclamation or a prophecy, “ _The Apocalypse was stopped because of the sacrifices of the Princess of Hope and Blood, during the Blood Moon. Her guardians will return when the Blood Moon rises again and once again save us._ ”

Deanna had to admit- Metal was cool, Love less so, but blood and hope was pretty much just icky. She wouldn’t wish that combo on anyone. It sounded cool on paper, but, eugh. “ _And the Huntress will lead the guardians of the Princess._ ”

And a different voice, deeper, more earnest, clear like a bell, declared, “ _Deanna Henrietta Winchester, the Huntress, has returned._ ”

It felt like her entire soul was screaming the words “ _The Huntress, the Huntress_.” Forget ice cream or pie. Now she just wanted a nap. Anything to stop the pounding scream of “ _Blood Moon Power, Ascend_!” throbbing in searing pain like it was a cavity she kept accidentally prodding her tongue into.

She put everything away again and pressed her palm against her temple as she started to walk. She really was going to talk to her mom about this, it was starting to really terrify her. But she liked the pen, and she didn’t have a lot of nice stuff, so she sorta wanted to keep it all.

She must’ve had her eyes closed because she accidentally bumped into someone.

An incredible handsome someone.

She’d seen him around, of course. He didn’t go to her school, but he took the bus to this stop and probably met a connecting bus there, usually at the same time as when she’d walk to get Sammy from school the days her clubs let out earlier. He didn’t seem much older- eighth grade, or maybe even a freshman, but gorgeous in a way that made her wonder if she were half as attractive as "destined to be the most beautiful woman," and if not, could it happen in the next thirty seconds? He smiled down at her, laughing.

“I’d get lost in all that hair, too,” he said, and looking down at her, his smile was playful and charming and _genuine,_ and his eyes were shiny and happy and coloured like _spun_ _gold_ or her mom’s bourbon, nothing a word as simple as _brown_ would ever describe, and she felt her tongue tense up in her throat. “Don’t worry about apologising,” he said, and his laughter was uplifting, rich, like melted chocolate to go with the salt caramel of his eyes.

 _He_ didn’t look annoying covered in freckles. _His_ looked like flecks of dusky gold to go with the rest of his golden everything.

“I _was_ gonna,” Deanna said. ‘ _Maybe grace should come before beauty_ ,’ she decided with a blush. “Sorry. I closed my eyes for a second, I’m getting a migraine.” It wasn't actually a lie, so it made for a perfect excuse.

“All’s forgiven then!” the boy announced, hands held out wide and generous.

“Well you did make fun of my hair,” she reminded him, pouting, even if her heart was pounding hard in her damn _throat_. Still, he’d insulted her hair, and she was so proud of it, she worked hard to keep it nice. Her dad had liked her long hair as a kid, it was something to remind her of him.

“Tie it back, if it’s in the way,” he chuckled. “Use a big bow. You know, actually, you’d look cute with a big bow around that long, elegant blonde hair. And it’d stay out of your eyes so you could see handsome strangers instead of meeting them by accident.”

She blushed deeper. “I have to go get my sister now,” she sputtered, avoiding his eyes at the convenient excuse as she moved around him to get to the elementary school. Was he right? She’d always left her hair loose, the way her dad had liked. Maybe she should tie it back?

Would guys like that more?

If she really was supposed to be beautiful, maybe she shouldn't cover her face.

She pulled the compact out and reached up with one hand to mimic a top-set bow, and the masked version of herself with the make-up and dangling earrings did look good.

She sent off a quick message on the calculator after judging herself against the reflection one more time. << _I looked. Who_ is _that? I don’t wear make-up and I look terrible in green. Well, I think I do. My mom says I look pretty in green, but moms say that._ >> She put it away and didn't wait for a response, while she looked around for a craft or fabric store to buy some silk ribbon. She picked red, taking it without a bag or receipt and heading straight to Sam’s school, rocking back and forth on her heels while she pulled her hair back and tied it tightly in place. Sam got out of whatever one of her little cute clubs it was today, mathletes or young scientists or poetry society or book club or something, noticing her sister was fidgeting when she’d run to the usual meeting place and spotting the ribbon almost immediately after Deanna finally got it settled into place without sliding off her new ponytail. It was bright red and stood out against even dirty blonde hair, so Deanna wasn't shocked when Sammy pointed up at it and said “Didya get that at school?”

“No, some guy I bumped into at the bus stop said I’d look good with my hair tied back and I was curious if he was right and I think he was. He was just being weird, but it feels lighter this way. Do you like it?”

Sammy looked at her for what felt like a minute solid like she was debating the merits of taking advice from strangers, before she broke into a bright smile and declared, “Yeah! You look really pretty!” She laughed and grabbed Sammy around the shoulders to mimic a headlock and tousle her hair.

“So what club was it today?”

“Early Reader’s Club! We’re reading Animal Farm!”

“Oh, I actually liked that one,” Deanna said, surprised more that they were reading something she hadn’t hated than the advanced age and themes. Sam was advanced in too many ways for her liking. “Are you guys gonna do Vonnegut next?”

“I recommended Salinger, you said you liked him.”

“Not as much as I liked Slaughterhouse 5. Or Philip K Dick.” She had a secret love of reading. But it was tapered with an open love of satires and science fiction.

“I don’t think they’d let me read something by a guy named _that_ ,” Sammy giggled.

“So borrow my books,” she grinned. “Let’s go home, it’s gonna rain.”

“I like rainy days.”

“I like ‘em better inside. Besides, we can make dinner and surprise Mom.”

“Okay!”

It would help. Deanna was a pretty good cook, and she liked doing things with Sammy, teaching things to Sammy, so it’d be fun- And it’d be a way to ease Mom into conversations like “I was talking to some stranger who said I’m reincarnated” and “I may have stolen a buncha gold stuff” and “I’m wearing this because some hot older guy said I’d be cuter with it and if I wasn’t picking up Sammy I’d’ve run back and asked him out when I put it on.”

Sammy fiddled around in her oversized backpack and pulled out an umbrella with a very cartoonish stylised picture of Mystic printed on rubberised plastic that Sam must've gotten during one of the many PR events.

She opened it and held it as high as she could until Deanna laughed and took it herself to hold them both underneath. “Alright, I guess we’re safe now.”

“Can you make pesto spaghetti?” Sam asked excitedly.

“I guess I could, if we’ve got stuff to,” she promised her. “But let’s make stuff Mom loves.”

“Mom loves anything we make for her!” Sam said with certainty. “And we can go shopping because we’ve got the umbrella!”

Deanna laughed again.

All the weird in the world, Sammy was definitely worth it. Creepy messages and past lives and cute but strange boys were all worth it for just one Sam. Even the future prospects, looking up at the vinyl plastic embossed with Mystic and knowing full well that she was potentially destined for the same sort of glamour and expectations and community service was worth it.

But something told her, maybe she shouldn’t tell her Mom. Or Sammy.

She was only thirteen, after all. Mystic was in her late thirties and nearing retirement if rumours were to be believed. Lady of Letters was in her thirties. Starshine, Nightmare, all the Kansans, were getting old.

Were they called to serve, and was it at thirteen or twenty? Were they reincarnations, destined from birth? Did they find gold and messages telling them to sell photo ops and give out umbrellas to the first one hundred to show up? Throw first pitches at the Royals games? Kiss babies and shake hands with the Mayor?

Deanna didn’t know. She wasn’t so sure she’d be a fan of the celebrity of it.

Although. Boys. Boys were cute. And Deanna wasn’t as pretty as the girl in the mirror, even if the bow did make her cuter.

“You’re bluu _uuu_ shing!” Sammy teased. “Do you have a boyfriend? Can I meet him? Are you gonna stop spending time with me to date him?”

Deanna laughed again. “Nope, Sammy, only you!” she promised. “No-one else matters!”

She looked up at the cartoony Mystic in the plastic. Nothing else would matter. Deanna would protect Sam, and if that meant she would reclaim some past life destiny, she’d do it.

Deanna changed out of her uniform, and did her homework with Sammy while the spaghetti cooked- her private little admission that she was dedicating herself completely to her sister. After Mary came home to a well-made meal and finished piles of homework and a clean kitchen, Deanna felt proud and perfectly justified lying to her family. After all, the lie was for them. And she could still take care of them and the whole Huntress thing, right? Probably.

Caretakers needed to be registered with local authorities so they could be reached at all times. But she saw the glaring flaw in that logic where the law did not- If anyone knew who she was, anyone could know who she was. And if someone knew her, they could know Mom or Sam. And to protect them by becoming a Caretaker meant she had to protect them from her being a Caretaker.

So Deanna waited until they were asleep and locked the door to her room, and went into her closet. There was a mirror on the inside of the door, after all. She blocked off the floor gap with a couple of old t-shirts and kept the light off, closing her eyes as she removed the pen from where she’d tucked it into her pyjama sleeve before her mother came to say good night.

She swallowed once nervously, gripping the pen with both hands, and whispered, “Blood Moon Power, Ascend.”

It was like her entire body jerked. She could _feel_ herself get naked, as if her clothes were disintegrated off of her. She could _feel_ flecks of metal that were the shape of sequins and as light as raindrops splatter against her skin, in what she eventually registered as heart-shaped patterns of all things. Whatever it was, it was _melting on her_ and cooling, forging itself into armour, and she was grateful it was cool metals instead of molten hot. There was a pressure, a dizzying rush, but sort of outward more than in, like the pressure had been inside of her and a fissure was letting it out slowly, and the rush was more like the lava was pooling out than like she was drugged. When the headrush cleared, she opened her eyes.

And then she tugged the chain to the overhead light, because, she’d forgotten that was a flaw of dark closets.

Caretakers were bright coloured and pretty. The interviews Deanna had caught over the years made it pretty obvious the colours reflected their souls, and brighter, stronger colours meant brighter, most earnest souls. More trustworthy.

Deanna looked at the girl in the mirror.

She knew it was her because she had the same waist-length dirty blonde ponytail tied back with a red silk ribbon in a bow on the top of her head, because she had the same bright green eyes and massive amount of freckles dotting everywhere, because it was her closet mirror and she was the only person in the closet.

But she’d never have guessed her soul was so… Dark.

There was light green, of course. Her skirt, her wavy miniskirt, was light green aside from the deep green trim. There were light green patches on her shirt, her midriff cut shirt. But the rest was dark green against the white- Dark green on the sleeve hems, dark green belt, dark green mask, dark green trim on her shoulder pauldrons, dark green sheen on the metal chainmail mesh on her sleeves that she knew was the actual material of her clothes just thinner to be translucent for decoration purposes and to disguise that all of it was chainmesh armour, and dark green gems in the middle of each link on the heart shaped chain wrapped around her waist. The rest of said chain was bright, glistening gold, the same darker gold that was on her tools, and there was an ascot that she knew was made from the same netting chainmail mesh that she now knew was originally that gold before being coloured to match her. It ended with gloves tapered with the gold, and Mary Jane shoes that were made of the same light green metal in more solid form.

Deanna looked at her soul, dark, masked, heavy and armoured and metal.

_It was perfect._

Deanna loved what she saw in the mirror for the first time in her life, and smiled at her reflection, with its bright glossy lips and glitter blush that didn’t care to mask her freckles so much as add a shimmery emphasis to them, her dangly emerald earrings cut into chain links to a hollowed heart with a dot of gold hanging inside the stones, her small crescent-waxing moon shape in the middle of her forehead that looked like fresh blood exactly in colour but was dry to the touch.

She took the chain and smiled as she held it in her hands.

 _She started with a weapon_. Most Caretakers didn’t. They had to train and earn them, most even held votes to see what the public wanted to see them use. But she had one to begin with, a chain that could easily double as a whip and a lasso and even just like all those movies had the biker gangs use. And metal was her specialty, wasn’t it?

She opened the closet door just a crack after turning off the light, keeping her armour on because, frankly, _she really liked it_ , and crept back to the side of her bed where she’d tossed down her bookbag, and pulled out the compact. This time, the mirror was her.

She pulled out the calculator, too. << _Blood Moon Power, Ascended_ ,>> she sent.

<< _You’ve activated yourself?_ >>

<< _You told me to._ >>

<< _Yes. Did you learn your mission?_ >>

<< _Not yet. Who are you?_ >>

<< _To be honest, I’m not sure. I know I’ve got a mission that coincides with yours, even though I’m in Illinois. My name is Fortune._ >>

<< _So you don’t know your past, either?_ >>

<< _I know it has something to do with my being a Caretaker now. I know you’re the only one I’ve ever talked to- And I know everything about you, and nothing about myself. But everything about the current you. All I know about the old you, I’ve told you. We were both involved in the original Blood Moon somehow._ >>

<< _When the Apocalypse was stopped._ >>

<< _Yes. I don’t think it was on Earth. Or, well, Earth as we know it._ >>

<< _What do you mean?_ >>

<< _I felt_ >> There was a pause, as if Fortune was thinking. << _God. I don’t feel God in our world. And Angels walked among us then. It felt more righteous._ >>

‘So those really were angels,’ Deanna thought, somewhat bitterly. << _Is that better?_ >>

<< _I’m not sure._ >>

<< _I’ve never heard of Fortune._ >>

<< _I’m unregistered. And I avoid the limelight and glitz. It seems counterproductive._ >>

Deanna couldn’t agree more. << _I live in a pretty populated area, so I’ll be spotted._ >>

<< _That doesn’t mean you have to tell cops your name, Deanna._ >>

She smirked because that was entirely her plan, too. << _I won’t. Don’t worry. The cops never like Caretakers after they do their work anyway. And I’ve never been the kind of girl who does well with authority._ >>

<< _I understand rebellion. My mission is yours, I’m just not sure how. We’ll figure it out. I may understand rebellion, but that doesn’t mean I accept it outright. We are destined, you and I, together, to be part of the Blood Moon. We will succeed in this- Whatever this is._ >>

She squinted as she reread over that. << _Ooookay, you can talk normal._ >>

<< _Didn’t I?_ >>

Deanna decided, she liked Fortune, even if she was a bit weird. << _I’d show you if I could. I love it. Usually they wear like, ridiculous armour and boob-plates and ball gowns and lots of frills, and mine’s like, functional light armour. I look like a cheerleader, except mine’s really metal and not show-armour. I mean it makes sense. Apparently I control metal, right? So my stuff’d be metal, but it’s like, chainmail. Or, ooh, Mithril! I’m gonna call it that. My dad used to read me Lord of the Rings, so it’s like, an homage to him._ >> Deanna lifted up the bow, smiling at the fabric as it cascaded like silk in her fingers. << _Moon mithril. The best light armour in fantasy fiction. It even moves like it- like, like spider silk._ >>

<< _I had no idea you were so well-read. That’s rare in Caretakers, from what I understand. At least, as far as fiction goes._ >>

<< _Well, Lady of Letters here in Lawrence said she’s a mother in some of her interviews, so I’m gonna assume she’s read stuff to her kid. Or kids. I dunno. My sister follows Caretakers, I just pick up stuff. She might follow me._ >>

Deanna reread that after sending it. She was just talking to Fortune like she was in the room. It was pretty easy to talk to her. So she risked it. << _Fortune, what’s your real name?_ >>

<< _I can’t tell you that. I wouldn’t’ve asked for yours, but I knew it. I only told you I knew it so you’d take me seriously._ >>

That wasn’t fair. << _Gimme something, Fortune._ >>

<< _Pontiac, Illinois. Nobody thinks to look here because it’s far enough away from Chicago to not care about it, there’s maybe ten thousand people here. I’m the only one here who works, but luckily they think I’m a lot older. I’m in seventh grade, too._ >>

Deanna liked that she wasn't younger. Fortune kept talking. << _Mine also looks like a cheerleading uniform, although my school has longer skirts than my outfit does. I actually joined the cheerleading squad because of it- I’ve been active since summer. I’m on the track team, too, but I prefer running fun runs and marathons and mostly use track as practice for jumping and dodging. I joined martial arts and kickboxing and fencing classes, too. Part of why people don’t know who I am is I do my job very well. And the reason I do it well is that even though these are all skills that get enhanced, if we train them in our normal states, we’d get even better, right? It’s a sort of extra edge to be able to jump thirty feet instead of just twenty, to kick stronger and steadier._ >>

She scoffed. << _Sounds like you take yourself kinda seriously._ >>

<< _I take the mission seriously. I was called for something. That makes me special. I never really thought I would be before it happened._ >> Deanna felt bad for mocking her- and kind of sorry for her, too.

<< _I guess I get that._ >>

<< _Blue._ >>

Deanna read that several times over. << _It’s my favourite colour?_ >>

<< _It’s the colour scheme I have. Several shades of blue, and a little black for contrast. Nothing disparaging, just, a few lowlights._ >>

<< _Mine’s dark. Dark green and darker green and this cool dark gold. I love it._ >>

<< _I thought you looked terrible in green._ >>

If she tried hard enough, she could pretend she heard Fortune laughing. << _I still love it. I should phase it out, or whatever._ >>

<< _You’re in it now? Still?_ >>

<< _Well, yeah. I sorta never wanna take it off._ >>

<< _You should train. Do rooftop scouting. It should be instinctive. You’d be amazed how much of this stuff is instinct, or past-life memory, or whatever it is. You were activated because there’s something in your area that none of the others can get. They’re not the same as we are._ >>

<< _You mean they’re old?_ >>

There wasn’t an answer.

<< _Fortune?_ >>

There still wasn’t one.

She must’ve gone to bed.

<< _Fortune, I don’t know what to do._ >>

Deanna sat up, still trying to type a way to reach Fortune, but gave up after a few minutes.

“Instinctive, huh?” she muttered, grabbing the compact and snuck to her window carefully, because, she was wearing like two pounds of metal although it turned out it was silent and the soles of the Mary Janes were thick rubber, which was nice because nothing could electrocute her if she had grounding rubber. Armed with that knowledge, and deciding to rearrange her room after school so that she could climb out her window by sneaking off the bed which would be quieter and easier, she got on the roof and looked around. She’d need to move fast, if something was there now.

Mystic was psychic, according to all of Sammy’s excited rambling raves about her favourite Caretaker. What could _she_ have missed that only Deanna could find?

Fortune said it was instinctive. She got the sinking feeling that Fortune was lonely. Lady of Letters, Mystic, Starshine and Nightmare all worked together in the greater Lawrence-Kansas City area. There was probably a reason KC and especially Lawrence were hotspots for monsters, but hell if she knew it, and none of the Caretakers were talking. She had the much sharper feeling that if they knew themselves, they’d’ve stopped it at the source, or at least kept people from living there. But she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, even running and jumping across rooftops.

Fortune was right about that much- being good at field events made Caretaking easier. Deanna had always been a good athlete, but as a Caretaker her normal abilities seemed boosted, and jumping across gaps and finding her footing even in shoes with chunky heels on wet roofing tiles was a snap. Finding enemies without actually knowing what enemies were besides big hulking monsters that tended to break stuff, not so snappy.

How was she supposed to find what the others couldn’t? No alarms were sounding. She should know, she was standing on top of an alarm megaphone right now to get a better vantage point. That’d be much harder to do if it were blaring klaxons so people would go to the shelters- And Deanna had been to them many times, dragged in by her mom until they were safely locked in the children’s rooms, because if most of the adults died they could keep the children protected longer. Children are our future or whatever. Every time there’d been monsters, usually large enough to actually see as she was dragged into the shelters. and there was always a mass panic and giant things destroying the town and air raid sirens.

The town was pretty calm, just a light rain.

Deanna didn’t want to distrust Fortune. She’d been right about a lot of things. Like the fact that she was Huntress now. If anyone asked, that was her name.

She’d earned that title under the Blood Moon. Sure it’d been like, forever and ever ago, maybe before humans existed at all or something, but, she’d earned it.

She knew _she’d_ earned it because she was wearing the exact same colours as that other Huntress from her memories, the one with bright green eyes and annoying freckles and really long dirty blonde hair that probably made her daddy happy to brush it and braid it and tease her for it and call her his pretty little lady even when she was covered with motor oil from helping him work on the Impala all afternoon.

Deanna knew where to start then.

The fence would’ve been easy to jump even if she wasn’t boosted, so skulking around at night wasn’t actually difficult. Not compared to the lump in her throat as she stood there, rereading the numbers over and over again.

JOHN ERIC WINCHESTER  
1954-1983  
LOVING HUSBAND AND FATHER  
REMEMBERED FOREVER

“Hi, Daddy,” she whispered, throaty and heavy from the weight of her own tongue dry and solid in her mouth. “I’m sorry it’s been a while. You’re the only person I’m going to tell. Fortune doesn’t count, she already knew. I’m a Caretaker now. Huntress. You wanted to take me hunting when I got older, remember? Mom wanted to wait until I was sixteen so I’ve never been, but apparently I’m really good at it.” She swallowed the last of her nerves and stepped up to kneel in front of the grave, putting her hand over the word “Father.” “I miss you. All the time. Mom wears your tags like, everywhere. Well the one we didn’t bury with you. I probably shouldn’t’ve come at night, but, it’s my first day doing this. There isn’t a manual, it’s instincts, that’s what Fortune said. And the only instinct I had was I wanted my dad.”

It was stupid. And depressing as shit. Why did she think this was a good idea. “Daddy, are ghosts real? Is that something Caretakers fight, too? You never hear about it. But lots of people believe in them, and there’s pictures and stuff, TV shows. Ghostbusters. That came out after you died, sorry. You’d’ve liked it.” Deanna stood up. “I know it’s stupid. And depressing. But if ghosts were real, it’d be nice if you were one of them, even for a little bit, so I could know you’re listening. I’d like to talk to you. I’m thirteen now. You died when I was four. Sammy’s nine. Sammy was still in diapers when you died and she’s nine now. You didn’t get to see her grow up, and she’s awesome, Dad, she’s the perfect kid. Much better than I am. You loved her when she had like, nothing to her, the person she is now, you’d be so proud of it.” She smiled. “I guess you’d be proud of me too, even though I don’t seem like I amount to much- but look what I am. Even if I am talking to rocks and hoping for ghosts.”

Deanna sighed, turning away. “I’ll come back,” she promised. “In the daytime, when it’s not raining. I’ll clean you up. I’ll bring Sammy. I’ll leave the whip behind.”

Ghosts weren’t just a metaphor, she knew that, but the quiet of the cemetery told her the facts. It was pretty obvious, in hindsight: Ghosts would be where the people would haunt, not where they were buried. Some place that mattered. And not all ghosts stayed ghosts. It just made sense. But it also made sense that all she found here was her own grounding point, not clues. She’d have to look elsewhere.

Not all monsters came with sirens. That was obvious too. And that meant that when Fortune had said they were different, their missions were different, it was because, they took care of the things that the Caretakers didn’t.

Hell, she was dressed different, wasn’t she, she was armed from the start, she had a different pattern. She looked like a cheerleader and wore armour… The Caretakers looked like they were warriors and were fighting monsters that never attacked the crowds themselves, just the buildings. No wonder people treated them like celebrities and pop stars, they basically were just gimmicks. Flashy damage and flashy armour. She wasn’t flashy.

She only looked flashier because this was sort of part of that past life thing, the most beautiful woman of her time thing. It wasn’t her fault if she looked like she wasn’t supposed to fight, she was only thirteen, she wasn’t that woman yet. She was going to stay off the radar, avoid the monsters, fight the real problems. Ghosts. The things that looked like they were human.

The things that looked back at her from the flames while her dad shoved Sam into her arms and screamed at her to run.

She’d never forgotten that. It just never occurred to her before now that bright yellow eyes weren’t necessarily reflections of flames.

She glanced back at her father’s grave, smiling as she did. “I have to go save the world now, Daddy,” she told the headstone. “I know it sounds weird, but the Blood Moon is actually a good thing, and I’m the one to bring it back. But first I gotta find the literal ghosts, instead of chasing them.”

Deanna ran to jump the railing again and to try and figure it all out. She knew what.

Well, maybe she knew what.

That just left where, why, how, and potentially also what.

One

Two

Three

Five feet in the air, landing directly on her heels after a flip, surprisingly delicately, on the other side of the fence.

Great.

 _Now_ she sticks a landing that wasn’t just perfect, but also completely illegal for the flop-on-your-back high jump test.

Lawrence was a college city, which meant it didn’t sleep until late in the night. Deanna had snuck out of her house before, using her height to pass herself as a high school girl so she could avoid the curfews, but now the active nightlife and her tall height and unique outfit stuck out. But she wanted to stay in it in case whatever ghost she was looking for showed up.

And because she loved it. She loved her girly, frilly costume made of mithril.

Mithril frills. She ran her hand against the hemline of her skirt and giggled at the very _idea_ of the thing as it slid between her fingers. It was perfect for her, and something that would be good to keep a low profile in.

Unfortunately, a low profile meant she had to stick to the shadows and rooftops. She was pulling all the best tricks from old spy movies on TV she could think of- sneaking low to the ground, moving slowly, staying out of the lights. It was working out pretty well, until an alarm sounded.

It wasn’t a city-wide panic alerting monster siren, just something nearby, smaller scale. But not a car alarm, which she knew almost as well as the monster alarm. It must’ve been a building, then. She decided to investigate, jumping down from her current rooftop and running towards the sound- what turned out to be a security alarm from a breaking and entering job. It didn’t take too long to examine the storefront and figure out what happened.

Someone had decided to rob a store by throwing a brick through the window. That seemed pretty stupid to her.

There was a difference between monsters the Caretakers fought and what Fortune and Huntress fought.

She ran into the bank across the street from the store, because there was no way the criminals were stupid enough to rob the place by breaking the windows. For a moment, she stood there, trying to remember something. Anything.

Instincts. Fortune said it would just come naturally.

Which was _stupid_ , because, the only instinct whispering in her ear besides that it was the bank and not the sporting goods store across the street was to use the compact.

She pulled it out, looking at herself because, well, why not? Lipgloss and eyeshadow and a dark green mask over her eyes and under her blood-coloured crescent moon.

Tomorrow she was going to ask her mom to teach her to wear make-up. Subtly like this was still really nice.

Of course, it was sorta weird that the mirror showed her like this, when earlier she’d been in her school uniform and it showed her like this, too-

Wait. What was it Fortune had said? Something like, the mirror didn’t reflect what you could see, but, reflections of what was really there?

Deanna folded the compact so she could see what was reflected in the bottom half and turned it towards the bank.

 _There_. What looked like a shadow was actually a hole in the wall, rainwater falling in and dripping like the exact opposite of those old flat-Earth maps’ waterfall rims. When she looked at it up close, she saw it was a black spot, about two feet wide in a perfectly round circle, flat against the wall but allowing things inside. One of those old Looney Toons holes- Wile E. Coyote was sorta her favourite, so, she understood the physics of it, and crawled into it.

Fortune said instincts were important, but nothing could’ve prepared her for this. It was like stepping into Toontown in Roger Rabbit, even if she was also stepping into a puddle of rainwater.

On the plus side, her instincts when it came to cartoons were _awesome_. Sammy was still young enough that babysitting her gave her an excuse to watch them herself. And it meant that she was able to spot the out of place things in the cartoony take on the bank- the hole in the vault, for one thing.

She smirked, pulling her chain off from around her waist and forming a lasso because cartoons worked that way, and went behind the teller booths, grabbing a clipboard and a counterfeit bill marker. She had to follow the rules here, so she made sure to write out nonsense math and sports replay looking symbols on the clipboard before she finished her plan- cartoons followed a pattern, and once those patterns were met, it would all work out the same way every time. She uncapped the pen and drew on the floor, then stood on the other side of the X while she flung the lasso into the hole. Cartoon physics meant no matter what it was gonna grab the thief and pull him out, and she jerked back once, hard, and he landed, just like cartoon physics would automatically follow a plan even if it was gibberish as long as it looked like a plan had been mapped out, directly in the centre of the X- which followed part three of cartoon physics and started to drop something from the air. She dropped the lasso and pointed at it- Cartoon or not, she still controlled metal, right? That’s what Fortune said her powers were- and the anvil falling twisted into a just as heavy but now hollow cage.

Which fell on the X, too. Right around the villain.

She blew him a kiss, just because that was how a pretty girl would do it in a cartoon, and it formed a big heart shape and fluttered over to him, landing on his cheek in a shade of lipgloss that matched hers, then reached between the cage bars for her chain.

Then, she picked up the phone- a cartoonishly large rotary phone with one of those old-timey earpieces- and dialled 9-1-1. “There’s nothing at the store you just got called to. That alarm that tripped at the bank wasn’t just a false alarm while a block circuit was tripped- He’s here.”

She turned to the guy in the cage as she hung up. “So… How long does Toontown last?”

“It’s not time, it’s distance,” he scoffed, trying to pull out a saw from a swiss army knife, but she was still metal and snapped as she pointed at it, so that it drooped in his hand, and it wobbled with a satisfyingly cartoonish metal twang as it did.

“You’re not gonna beat me, even in this place,” she warned. She had spent years watching cartoons, after all, and she came in here able to alter whatever he turned into cartoons. “And I’m not letting you out. So you might as well tell.”

He rolled his eyes. “Which Caretaker are you?”

She scoffed, spinning the lasso again to capture the bag of money, which cartoonishly dropped several oversized items out of the bag as it swept through the air and into her hand. “Do you really need to know? Listen, I can’t stay and chat, because I’ve had a weird day and sorta just wanna go back to work. Better day than yours, though.” She wrapped the lasso back around her waist and went to the hole to climb out, peeling it off the wall when she did and folding it up against itself so it popped out of existence.

“Neat trick,” a cop said on the other side of it. “Never thought one of you girls would turn to a life of crime. You’re under arrest.”

Deanna rolled her eyes, thrusting the bag, now normal and filled with jewellery and money that didn’t look like Chuck Jones drew it, against him. “I’m not the guy who did it. He’s in there. I just caught him- I’m the one who called you! How’d you get here so fast?”

“We were already across the street, Black Spot.”

She made a disapproving clicking sound, pointing her thumb at the former spot. “Mm, no, sorry. He’s the guy. He does like, cartoon world stuff. You gotta think like you’re in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in there. It works out pretty well.” She scoffed again when she saw the handcuffs, snapping and pointing at it.

They got white-hot, then melted when the cop dropped them. “Whoa,” she said. “Is that what happens when it’s not a cartoon?”

“You know, I can get you on resisting arrest alone, even if you did return the goods,” the cop warned, even though he was staring at the melted lump of metal on the ground between them in shock. Deanna always thought Caretakers had powers, but was that really just a trick for the cameras and stuff? Come to think of it, aside from Mystic, most of them used basic tactics and weapons. Deanna already had shown more abilities just by being able to jump higher than normal and to wear metal armour. And Mystic’s abilities were well-documented psychic powers, but just stuff like mind-reading and fortune sensing.

“I’m not resisting arrest, I’m resisting false arrest while some cop like twice my age tries to lock me up for doing his job,” she pointed out, hands on her hips.

The cop was clearly about to respond when another one ran up. “Victor, you’ve gotta see this. There’s a guy in there in a giant metal cage!”

“You’re _welcome_ ,” Deanna huffed.

“You did that?” the new cop asked.

“Yeah, it was easy. I’m Huntress by the way. I do metal stuff, that’s my whole thing. I was walking by and I decided to do your job and catch the bad guy,” she said. “Do you need me to put a door on the cage?” She scooped up the metal slab the handcuffs had formed and twisted it so it was once again a repaired pair of cuffs. “I’ll let you slap them on him,” she teased, handing them back Victor-the-cop.

“How did you do that?” the new cop asked, awestruck, while Victor rolled his eyes.

“Look, I already told you, but I’ll make this even simpler: I do metal-stuff. I can make metal do stuff. And that means I can undo metal stuff, too. Victor gets it,” she said, walking past him. “Now I’m gonna go open up the cage I made and you can slap those things on the criminal instead of me. Com’on, big boy, escort me back in?” she teased, wrapping her arms around the new cop’s elbow and winking.

Flirting was really easy when the other stuff you did was love stuff. It was like making someone love you until you walked away. To be honest, she could feel it inside her, it was simple enough to twist his emotions to make him fall in love with her, make the entire room fall in love, easier than twisting metal. But that felt sorta gross to do. Flirting was fine- a short, lingering little memory, to make it easier to be around someone, instead of being turned against them, and only if the little thing that made love powers work in her went ‘ping’ that there was an attraction in the first place. Which, sorta gross, but they didn’t know she was only thirteen. She was wearing a mask and make-up and was tall enough and somewhat shapely enough to pass for a college kid. But it served them right- if they were going to want to hit on her, why not use that against them, just to make it slightly less tricky to get past people who would otherwise arrest them?

She decided then and there to never use it against people who she was interested in herself, to force people to fall in love or have sex, or, to turn someone who actually hated her into someone who she could manipulate. And right now, since hate powers were basically the “undoing metal stuff” of love powerers, that hate-sense was pinging.

Victor was standing behind her, glaring at her back and  seething so hard she could feel it, so she turned over her shoulder and frowned at him while they walked. “You know, I’m on your side. Like I said, my name’s Huntress.”

“You’re not registered,” Victor grumbled.

“That’d be because I’ve only been active for a week. Oh, and because, I’m not gonna register. I’m gonna reshape the cage in there and then I’m gonna go do my job. You can do yours by taking down inventory and filing information reports on the guy across the street’s stuff and I’ll do mine by figuring out how this human guy could do the stuff he did then go kill the monsters.” She pointed at Victor, directly at his badge. “Humans.” She pointed at herself. “Monsters. Pretty simple jurisdiction lines, right? Right.”

She patted the cop she was flirting with’s bicep and peeled off him. “This guy was on the edge of your stuff and my stuff, so, joint-operation. He was like a witch or something, that falls under me, but at the end of the day that means he’s human and he was just stealing stuff.”

“I’m not a witch,” the man said from inside the cage. “Witches aren’t real.”

Deanna knew better than that, although if she’d been asked four hours ago, she would’ve agreed. She put one hand around a cage bar and leaned forward to smirk at the guy. “Gonna tell me how you did it? Because we’d all really like to know.”

“Ask Fred,” he sneered.

Deanna shrugged, pulling at the cage so it would reshape hinges, which sprung open and let him spill out on the floor in front of them. “Book’em, Danno,” she said as she turned and walked out.

“You have to register!” Victor called out.

“We register ourselves so you can reach us. I don’t want to be reached, when you have an entire group of registered girls trained for their missions- not mine. You need someone to handle the stuff like this, you can reach them, and if you need me, you’ll know- I’ll find you,” Deanna said, digging her heels and pressing her hands into fists thrust hard against her thighs as she protested. “I don’t want to be them, I want to do my job and that’s the end of it, Victor! So stop asking!”

“It’s Henriksen,” he corrected. “Victor Henriksen. And you’re gonna see me around whether you want to or not.”

“Fiiiiine,” Deanna groaned. “But this doesn’t mean we’re gonna work together or be friends, and it doesn’t mean I’m ever going to register, and it doesn’t mean I want to be here. Figure out what Ask Fred means ‘cause I’ve got to save the world, Henriksen.”

Henriksen rolled his eyes at her. “You’re still going to register. It’s the law.”

“You like just saw me melt cages and handcuffs, and you’re gonna try to arrest me? Using what? And even if you found something, just imagine what I can do to a car. I’m guessing you drive a ‘92 or ‘93 Crown Vic? That thing has something like two  thousand pounds of steel, aluminium and wrought iron. You gotta get yourself a sixties Chevy, those things are pure steel beauties,” she chuckled, remembering the car in her mom’s garage that she used to work on. “Although I’d probably mess that up more.”

Henriksen raised an eyebrow. “Know something about cars?”

Deanna laughed. “I know everything about cars. Every girl’s got a hobby and it helps to know what kind of crap guys wanna pick you up with thinking they’re the impressive ones.” She waved. “I’ve seriously gotta go. I’m too busy to stick around where I’ve already done the stuff I needed to do- And you just need to know about Superman, not Clark Kent.”

“Diana Prince,” Henriksen said.

“Excuse me?” ‘Diana’ was awfully close to Deanna, but there was something familiar about the name.

“You’re a girl with a rope, Wonder Woman, and her name is Diana Prince. And if she were real, I’d figure that out. I’ll figure yours out too, Huntress,” Henriksen assured her smugly, pulling out a notepad and a pen and writing something down, which Deanna noted because it seemed like a good idea, and a familiar one- her father had kept a journal. “In the meantime, I’m putting that name down.”

Deanna rolled her eyes again. “ _God_ , you’re so _lame_.” She walked out of the bank again, jumping back on the roofs and looking down when Henriksen ran after her. “If you need me to handle the human problems along with the monsters, I can live up to my name and track them down- and catch them. But that’s all I’ll do, and since I gotta fight the monsters too, you gotta step it up and help me!” she called down. “Bye, Victor!”

She ran across the roofs in a deliberately wrong pattern- hopping down to backtrack and weave through buildings on ground level to get the right direction- and eventually hopped back up for the better travel. This time she decided, the cops now knew about her, why bother skulking? So she just moved along the tops of them.

She could control metal. Melt it and shape it and reform it. That was so cool. Fortune had been right about the instincts thing- like, she knew, it wasn’t a complete thing, there were limits to what she could and couldn’t control. And she had to be within a few feet of it. So that helped. Knowing there was a range.

And the chain-whip was so awesome. Like holding it, feeling it, using it even in cartoon world? She had a whole rush of memories pass through her, telling her things she could do. It wasn’t some simple weapon, it was all sorts of things, and it worked like all metal did for her, she could forge it at will, harden it and mould it.

She’d accidentally gone home, in her rooftop stalking. She stopped, looking at the windows to the house. Sammy’s room had its window open too- she had always slept with it open, so that helped sell the lie, and Sammy must’ve picked up the same habit sometime. She couldn’t help but smile at the window, because, she only kept this up for her.

And she’d already caught a bad guy on her first night on the job. So awesome. Sammy’d be proud, even if it was the wrong guy.

She blew a kiss like earlier, kinda wishing it gave off a little heart too, and ran off.

A few streets away, and she knew it was the right place. She jumped down again, landing softly and looking around. Whatever it was, she couldn’t _see_ it, and that was _worse_. Metal was a cool power, and she was beginning to get sold on love, but what was the point when she couldn’t do more than guess? Pulling out the mirror for a reveal didn’t tell her anything either.

There was a car coming down the street, so she leapt back up, watched it for a few seconds, then decided to just go home.

But she couldn’t shake that she had been in the wrong place at the right time, even though she caught someone.

She hadn’t wanted to take it off, but she did anyway. She put the tools back in the purse in her backpack, she ran her hands lovingly over the chain’s emeralds, and she let herself go back from Huntress the Caretaker of Lawrence Kansas to Deanna H. Winchester, middle school Lawrence native in her pyjamas who should sleep because she had class in the morning.

Come said morning it was hard to look her mom in the eye at breakfast, so she decided to just grab a Pop-tart and leave early, even with her mother yelling after her that she needed to take Samantha to school. She’d get it later for forgetting her sister, but she really didn’t want to talk to her mom after sneaking out and running around town and stuff.

She wanted just one more day not to have to lie.

She was gonna have to from now on, one day to put it off wouldn’t hurt.

Of course, she was gonna have to lie to the class, too. But that was so much easier than lying to her family, she barely talked to her classmates

She stopped as she was walking to school, because a flash of recently familiar green and Chuck Jones-esque watercolours caught her eye on a stack of displayed TVs running the morning news. Apparently they had footage of her from the security tape of the bank- even the cartoon world, in all its animated glory, which had been in clear-quality full colour instead of black and white and grainy. There was a ticker-feed on the bottom of the screen talking about it: A new Caretaker, refusing to register and therefore dangerous and rogue, had set off the metal detector at the bank and alerted the cops to her location. When they checked the tapes it turned out she had captured Black Spot, who had turned out to be a nursing home runner who had been using a psychokinetic patient who was fond of cartoons to alter reality. The man, Fred Jones, was taken back to the home after it was determined he wasn’t just safe and harmless, but that the patients were doing better with him altering the rules of the universe so that they were able to age without physical ache and pain.

“They asked Fred,” she said softly, amazed, a little impressed that Henriksen had done it. She decided she’d go visit Fred, tonight, when it was safe, just to ask a few questions of her own. She read off a few more ticker feeds- there had been a couple of kidnappings and missing persons reports and another car abandoned without a driver at some local bridge that had people leave cars behind a lot, but Mystic had already started divining and Starshine and Lady of Letters each reported they were on it. None of the names of the victims struck any chords with her, so she walked away. Now that she had an example of what she looked like to the fans, she saw there were already more than a few merchants who had, alongside the usual Caretaker swag, started putting out Huntress merchandise and very poor mock-ups of the chain belt and mask, and booths of people with red ribbons.

At first she was a little mad that she’d found her own style not even a day before it was being packaged and resold as a trend, but then it dawned on her that this was the best thing that could happen. The more people wore them the less she’d stand out, she realised, grateful for the fact that there were girls buying them at several nearby stands and immediately tying them into their hair in different patterns but always in a big bow, that there were headbands and barrettes with bows pre-made and attached, and every single one giant and the cexact shade of red bouncing against her hair as she practically skipped into her homeroom.

“You, too?” one of her classmates, Melissa, asked when she sat down at her desk and started to set out her notebooks and her pen. She pointed at her own red ribbon tied, Deanna noticed with glee, around a barrette clipping back some hair off her right ear instead of correctly at the top of her hair to tie it in a ponytail. “That’s like three different girls!”

Deanna wasn’t sure what she meant, but, hey, it was a different sort of lie, right? “Well, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” she said, grinning.

“Ugh, I thought I was the only one who saw her,” Melissa groaned. “But like _everyone_ did!”

“Saw who?” one of the boys, Chris, asked.

“ _Huntress, duh_ ,” Melissa sneered. “She’s the new Caretaker! She’s been active for a few days, but she was hiding around town, and only a few of us saw her! They finally got a good picture of her last night, she was at the bank they caught the Black Spot thief at! She caught him!”

“There’s a new Caretaker?” Chris asked, while Deanna mentally laughed at Melissa’s attempt to seem cool and trendsetting by being fan of someone who hadn’t existed before yesterday.

“Yeah, and she’s all _over_ the news- and she’s so cool, she’s got this swishy hair and she dresses like a cheerleader and she uses a metal chain like she’s in a biker gang, but she wears this really girly big red bow in her hair!” Melissa continued. “So lots of people were selling them around town, because it’s her trademark. And if you don’t wear one, you don’t _get_ it.”

Deanna grinned, unable to keep herself from calling her on it. “Several days, huh? Then why didn’t you wear one before today?”

“Duh, because they didn’t _sell_ them until today!”

Deanna snorted as she sat back in her seat, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder so it _swished_ , and smirking even more smugly than Victor Henriksen had the night before. “I bet,” she said, twirling a strand of her _swishy_ hair around her finger, “You just saw it on the news today and thought you’d be so cool if you were the first person in school who hopped on the Huntress bandwagon.”

Melissa practically growled and stomped her foot as she pouted back to her seat, and that was every bit as satisfying as catching Black Spot had been. “I did see it on the news, this morning,” Deanna continued. “And I bought one on the way to school because Huntress is awesome.”

“She’s smart!” another boy, Brian, said as he plopped down backwards in the seat in front of her, turned to face her. He was wearing a ribbon tied around his head instead of his too short for it hair, with a bow sitting on top of his hair regardless, and talking animatedly with waving hands and expansive gestures. “She figured out the way it worked in like, _ten seconds_. And then she beat Black Spot at his own game, and she saved a lot of treasured memories and a man’s dignity, even if he’s senile and wouldn’t know it- That’s the sort of hero Starshine could never be! A heroine with no concern for fame or reward, who helps the literally helpless and exploited!”

Deanna remembered that Brian was one of the worst of the Caretaker obsessives she’d ever run into, and that Starshine had been his favourite yesterday.

Well, it was kinda cool she’d taken another Caretaker’s spot, sorta. Chris didn’t seem to agree. “So now everyone’s wearing bows on their heads because of a Caretaker capturing one guy?” he snorted.

Brian stood up, lifting the loosely hanging overlap from where his shirt hem was tucked in so that his beltloops showed. “There’s a bunch of merchandise already!” he said as Deanna noticed the chain-whip belt, clunkily made and badly imitated using plastic gold coins with painted green dots in the centres, but still, they really did exist.

She’d been a Caretaker for less than twelve hours, and they already had replicas of a weapon she hadn’t voted for from a series of over elaborate replica-worthy weapon ideas.

“Does it ever seem creepy to you that you’re obsessed enough with girls to wear their clothes?” Melissa asked from her seat, trying to save face.

“You’re not any better,” Deanna said, because it was her clothes in question and she felt that deserved a damn response. “You’re wearing another girl’s clothes, too.”

“And what about you?” Melissa sneered.

“I think she’s cool. I’m wearing a bow. So are you two. And lots of other people. It’s not creepy or something. If that’s how Brian wants to support the people who want to save us, let him buy crappy belts and tie a bow around his hair. It’s his money and it’s definitely his hair,” she pointed out, winking at him. “Rock on, Brian.”

“Deanna gets it,” Brian said, moving to his seat. “Melissa doesn’t. I didn’t know you were into Caretakers, Deanna.”

“I’m not, I just think Huntress is cool. The whole refusing to register, sarcastic comebacks to the cops thing? That’s awesome,” she said. “They’re gonna _hate_ her. And I like _that_. So I bought a ribbon. Which probably makes me the least fake person here, which means Brian’s just as bad as you are, Melissa. And that means he’s also _only_ as bad as you are.”

‘ _So get over yourselves_ ,’ Deanna mentally spat. ‘ _I’m wearing it for me, not for some solidarity from a girl who doesn't want it._ ’

She wasn't going to take it off to please them, but, she knew school was going to be full of Huntress talk. Three more girls were wearing ribbons in her classes, and one of the eighth grade English teachers, which sort of weirded Deanna out.

It was a good idea to let them all keep it up, but it was just so strange. Being the original and being seen as a fake, being a trendsetter for something she didn't even try to set… All because banks had cameras.

When she got out of school, she was exhausted from the marathon endurance trial of having to deal with the fake personalities of everyone around her adopting her. Was that normal? Was she like that, too, before she took up Caretaking?

Deanna just wanted to curl up in bed, maybe have some pie, and chat with Fortune about the whole personality shift of everyone around her. Fortune said she wasn't a celebrity. She’d have to ask for tips.

“Well, at least you didn't bump into me this time,” the high school boy from before chuckled when she walked by the bus station, looking at the ground instead of where she was going just like when she’d run into him. “Hey! You tied it back! Red, good choice, it’s my favourite colour,” he noticed, whistling at the colour. “You look kinda hot like this.”

“I’m thirteen,” she said, glaring as she looked up at him, even if she was blushing a little too.

“I’m older than that,” he said. “I don’t wanna sleep with you, you just look good, don’t get wigged out. I've got a girlfriend. I just think you could get a boyfriend like this.”

“Why would you care?”

“‘Cause you’re always passing by here when I’m waiting for my bus, and you look depressed,” he said. “You never even noticed I wait here every day?”

She had. She hadn't noticed a lot of things, but she had noticed that, and didn't want to dwell on the fact that something about this boy had been important enough to notice him, and that she was a little bitter he had someone already. That earlier blush was currently making her feel hot, and not in a comfortable way.

“You have a whole different aura today. Your vibe’s in sync or something, you just gotta get used to that,” he continued. “But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

“What secret is that?” she asked, nervous suddenly.

“That you wore that bow before anyone else did, Huntress or no Huntress,” he said, grinning. “It’s not about _her_ when you wear it. It’s about _you_.”

“Maybe it’s about her.”

“Nah. I saw you yesterday, looking in your make-up kit, playing with your hair after I suggested the change. You did it for you. And it’s pissing you off everyone is doing the same thing.” He winked, holding up his wrist. There was a red ribbon tied around it. “Personally? I kinda like her. She doesn't put up with the cops trying to keep her from doing her job. It’s been a while since a Caretaker just did their missions instead of pandering to everyone and playing it up for cameras.”

“Except you’re giving into the celebrity shit too,” she pointed out.

“I figure she’ll get royalties eventually,” he shrugged. “And I think she didn't even realise there were cameras on. Now’s when you make up an excuse to go,” he laughed, adding a wink. “Because I make you nervous for whatever reason.”

“You do make me nervous,” she agreed. “But I do have to go. My sister-”

“That’s what you said yesterday,” he said. “So maybe it’s actually true.”

“She’s nine,” she explained. “My mom wants me to walk her to and from school. That’d be a really shitty thing to make up.”

He laughed. “You’re fine, don’t worry about it. You don’t look as depressed today, and you took my advice. I won’t bug you again if you don’t want me to.”

“I really don’t!” she said insistently, turning away from him. “I’m a pretty private person! But thanks. The ribbon idea… It was a good one. I really am happier with it like this.”

“You’re welcome!”

“You’re still pretty annoying,” she groaned, walking on to the elementary school- and spotting Sam before she got there. “What are you doing?” she asked, running up to her at one of the stalls, even more now than there were this morning, selling what few photos they could copy from the TV feeds and merchandise with images of Huntress.

Sam grinned, holding up

A fake chain belt.

Oh.

She had a damn ribbon in her hair, too.

“So you learned about Huntress,” she said, reaching down to tie it better for Sammy, who had it headband style on the top of her head and slightly to the side. Sammy wore her hair in pigtails that day, but at the base of her neck, and they were long enough she could wrap the bow around both rubber bands without losing the style at all, both tails hanging down as she pulled them back over Sam’s shoulders. “There, that’s better. It’s cute, Sammy. You look more like Huntress now.”

“I saw her!” Sam told her, bouncing up and down in pure nine-year-old energetic fashion. “She was outside our house! She was looking right at us! On the roof across the street!”

Deanna saw her opportunity and she took it. “Yeah, she does it a lot.”

“So you _did_ get the ribbon because of her!”

“Well, she didn't have one the first night I saw her. But she’s got hair like mine, really long, and during gym mine gets in my face sometimes, so I thought, maybe hers flailed around while she was fighting or jumping on rooftops so she started tying it back. I liked the idea and there really was a cute guy at the bus stop who said it’d look better, but, I didn't know we got the same colour until today, or even that she was blonde like me. I never saw the colour scheme from my room, yours must have better light,” Deanna said, making it all up on the fly.

“Oh. So you didn't know what she looked like for real until today?”

“That’s right. If it wasn't for the hair and the skirt length, I’d’ve thought she was one of the other Caretakers. I didn’t know her name until earlier, either.” Technically, true.

“She’s really smart! Lady of Letters is supposed to be the smart one, Starshine’s the tough one, Nightmare’s the magic one, and Mystic’s psychic. But Huntress was tough and magic and smart, so what do you think the others are gonna think?” Sam babbled.

“I don’t think Huntress is magic, she just can control metal.”

“But that’s _magic_!” Sam said.

“Maybe, but if it were real magic, she’d have more of it, right?”

“Why is she called Huntress?”

Deanna shrugged. “Why are any of them called any of it?”

“Mystic’s ‘causa her powers! And Lady of Letters said she changed her name after her first husband died as an homage to him, and she useta be Mayflower, which is a legacy name she inherited from her grandmother! Starshine is because she only works at night, and Nightmare is because she fights our nightmares and considers herself theirs,” Sam recited.

“Well, maybe Huntress likes hunting. Seems as good as the rest of those reasons,” Deanna tried.

“Maybe! But she uses a whip!” Sam flung the chain she’d just bought out, attempting to crack it. “Cuh-swush!”

“Like this,” Deanna said, taking it and cracking it into a pretty solid whip-snap for a poorly made replica. “But this is weak, and it’ll break. This is pretty goofy.”

“It’s a _belt_. It’s not supposed to be a weapon!” Sam said like it was the most obvious thing in the history of the entire universe and that her clearly stupid sister had missed picking up on it. “It’s not _real_ like hers is.”

“Well, then, wear it,” Deanna said as she handed it back, laughing at the whole ridiculous all of it. Her own sister, obsessing over her.

She wasn't a celebrity. She was Candid Camera meets Cops. But if it made Sam happy, she could do some of the stupid local celebrity stuff.

Actually, she had an idea for something.

But first, pie.

“Young lady, if you think, for one second, I made you fresh pie when you stormed out of here and left your sister behind this morning so I had to take her to school, you’ve got to guess again,” her mom scolded after she’d made the mistake of asking her. Mary had been waiting at the door to stop her as soon as she came home, ushering Sammy in with the usual understood order to go to the other room so one of them couldn’t stand up for the other.

“So you didn’t have to go to work today?” Deanna tried for a sarcastic deflection, but felt guilty immediately, because her mother didn’t deserve it.

“I did, as a matter of fact. I traded the second half of my shift to make sure I didn’t have to pick up Samantha from school, too. What’s the matter with you, you’re usually so responsible-”

“I still am, I just didn’t want breakfast and I knew you were gonna force it on me, that’s why I even bothered grabbing a snack when I ran out,” Deanna lied easily, moving past her by ducking under her arm and setting her bag on the dining table as she went into the kitchen. “I’ll get my own pie, I made some yesterday anyway.”

“You’re not getting pie, you know better than to let Sam walk herself to school-”

“Did you take her?” Deanna asked. “Before you went into work?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Did you? Because she didn’t walk herself.”

“Stop back talking, Deanna,” Mary sighed. “Yes, I took your sister to school. No, that doesn’t make it all better just because Sam got to class on time and safely. You have one chore, Deanna. You take Sam to school and pick her up from school.”

“I have one, but I do like, everything here.”

“You offer to,” Mary reminded her. “So don’t try to guilt-trip me, that’s not fair to any of us.”

“I’m not, Mom, I’m just reminding you. I know I do it without being asked, and I sorta like doing it, but that means you don’t pretend I’m not doing my part because I skipped breakfast and realised halfway to class that meant I forgot Sammy only one morning when I do like, everything here every day,” Deanna said, cutting a slice of blueberry from the fridge and dropping a small spoonful of whipped cream on top. “Can I go out this afternoon if you’re home? I’ll take Sam if I have to but I’d like to leave her here. I wanna go shopping and I don’t want her trying to buy stuff, too.”

“What sort of stuff do you think you’re old enough for that she isn’t?”

“Make-up,” Deanna admitted as she sat at the table, spooning off large bites of her snack. “Like, lipstick and eyeshadow and maybe some blush. Not a lot. But she’s too young and she’ll want some too.”

Mary’s entire body shifted, relaxing. “You’ve got a little boyfriend,” she laughed. “You were sneaking out to meet him this morning.”

Deanna was going to have to have Fortune help her keep all the lies straight. She shifted awkwardly on her feet, deliberately looking away like she was sincere as she rambled, “Well, more like a guy I think is cute and kinda likes me but he’s older and I’m not sure it’ll work out, but, I wanna try. He’s not scary-creepy older, he’s fourteen!”

Maybe? She was just gonna talk up the bus stop guy, because he was the perfect excuse. “If it works out I promise I’ll bring him over before we go out. Promise! I just wanna go buy some stuff.”

Mary sighed, shaking her head and chuckling fondly. “Go. Just. Go on, you. I was beginning to worry you weren’t going to start dating at all.”

“Mooo _ooo_ oom, I was _looking_ , I just wasn’t looking too _hard_ because I gotta watch Sam and I don’t wanna date for _real_ until she’s old enough to take care of herself! I’m still not gonna _date_ -date, I just wanna see if I _can_ , okay?” Fortune. Needed. Footnotes. Hell, Deanna was going to need footnotes. She should buy a journal, like Henriksen, like her dad, used.

“Be back by six,” Mary warned, pulling out two twenties. “And pick up some dinner. I have work tonight to make up for leaving early, so you’ll have to babysit.”

Deanna nodded. “Okay, six,” she agreed. “That’s long enough.”

It’d be about twenty minutes to go to the retirement home to check on Mr. Jones and get some publicity for maybe half an hour or so, then she could visit her dad again and see if that neighbourhood was still creepy, actually stop in for making shopping since her mom would wanna see it now, and pick up some Chinese on the way back.

“Um, I wanna take Sammy to see Dad sometime, too. Not today. But you know, Saturday or Sunday? I think he’d like that,” she added. “And I kinda wanna start doing after school stuff even though I asked you to get me out of it… I’ll get Sammy after her stuff is done, and she can come back to school with me and watch my practices and do her homework.”

Mary sighed. “What made you change your mind, Deanna?”

“Because I’m starting to realise I’m pretty boring,” she said, pushing her now empty plate aside. “And boys won’t like boring girls, even if they’re pretty.”

“You are growing up to be very pretty, Deanna,” Mary said, smiling and patting her arm.

“Dad thought I was pretty when I was a kid,” she mumbled as she gathered up the dishes.

“What was that?”

“I was saying I may see Dad by myself today, too. The cemetery’s only two stops away if I take the right bus.”

Mary nodded. “Be back by six,” she reminded her.

“I will, Mom.” Deanna stepped out of the house, sneaking around two blocks before ducking into an alcove and changing back to hop on the rooftops to head to the retirement home. If Sammy wanted a celebrity sister and Brian was so sure Huntress could be the first one who really cared, well.

There was something there, wasn’t it?

Saving people.

And hunting things.

That should be her motto. They could slap it on lunchboxes and school supplies and maybe they’d believe she meant it if they read it enough, if she said it in interviews enough, if it became more famous than Huntress herself.

She smiled as she hopped off the rooftops to walk to the retirement home, resolute in the new fan appreciation approach. The one that would make her sister happy and would protect her best. “Hi,” she said at the front desk, throwing on her best playful grin and throwing in just a tint of love-me flirting at the receptionists. “I’m exactly who you think I am, and, I came to check up on Fred Jones? He’s been through a lot so I wanna make sure he’s okay.”

She did call up the Chinese restaurant from Fred’s room, telling them she’d pick up the order around five thirty, and they’d know who it was when she got there. She spent about an hour with him, and it was sort of nice just sitting with a guy who wouldn’t ever see her as a celebrity or a hero, just some pretty girl who wanted to watch cartoons with him and to care about a lonely old man trapped in his own head. She spent a little time with the other patients, especially the ones who the nurses said had the least visitors, took a few photos and promised to come read to them and spend more time.

She fully intended to, too. It was a small thing, but, saving people. They needed to know the little things, the caring things, the save them from their own loneliness and despair things, were part of that.

And if she was going to be Sam’s hero, she was going to be one worthy of her.

She stopped by the graveyard again, because it still felt important. She sat on a headstone near her father’s and finally contacted Fortune again.

<< _So that plan to not be famous? Didn’t exactly pan out._ >>

<< _I saw in the_ Sun-Times _today. You still did good. You’re really pretty- You look right for this. I’m jealous. >> _Deanna felt sort of proud of that. _ <<I bought a ribbon. I wore it today. Is it true you melted the handcuffs?_>>

<< _I did. I can do stuff like that, it’s pretty easy. But I can’t figure out what I’m hunting. I just got my name, by the way. I hunt things. The monsters, the bad things. I stalk them and kill them like a real hunter, which was why I had to be the best hunter in that past life we had._ >>

<< _That makes sense. I don’t know why I’m Fortune. Except, well, I think I have luck powers. But they’re not real luck powers- It’s not like, good luck or bad luck, and it’s not always my luck. It’s like I have some sort of luck happens powers, but I’m not sure. I have some other stuff though. I’m pretty good at trapmaking and swordsmanship, and I’m sorta psychic, and I can teleport a little._ >>

<< _Fortunate, maybe._ >>

<< _Maybe. I have to go patrol my own area. There’s stuff here I’m looking for, too. I’ll tell you about it when I solve this- I want to know all about yours, too. And about Black Spot._ >>

Deanna groaned, putting the calculator away, and sitting there for a moment, looking around. “Wish you could help,” she muttered to the grave when she set her eyes on it. “Wish I knew what I’m looking for.” She stood up and surveyed everything carefully, trying to pick up some clue.

There was _something_ here but she had no idea what, or how to tell, or anything. She groaned and hopped down, ready to set up her patrol patterns. The other Caretakers had them, well-known ones that were easy to find public records of and that anyone could figure out. She had to cover all of theirs and make her own, because if anyone could figure it out, anyone included the people to patrol for.

But like Fortune had told her in the beginning, it seemed more like she went to just the right places than that it was random. She touched the back of her knuckles lightly to the first e in her father’s name as she walked by him and smiled as she ducked her head, then left the graveyard.

One last stop to the creepy neighbourhood, then, Szechuan beef, extra onions.

There was nothing there. Well, there was the creepy feeling at one house, but nothing else. Most of the houses on the street were up for sale, and Deanna wondered as she walked in front of them how many were haunted. How much of Lawrence was, actually- Five active Caretakers and one of the most haunted cemeteries in the country left something pretty terrifying in the water.

She sat on the roof of a probably-haunted empty house, staring at the one she was certain was the answer, pulling out the calculator. << _I know it’s a ghost. You said trust your instincts, and I know, instinctively, I’m looking for a ghost. I just don’t know what type of ghost._ >>

<< _Is it dangerous?_ >>

<< _I don’t know. I think I need more information, and I don’t know where to look. But I know where._ >>

<< _So look up stuff around the area. Ghosts are easy. Dig up their bones, pour a pure salt and gasoline over it and burn it. Sometimes it’s hair or skin left in places, or an item they’re attached to- You can usually figure it out with a little work._ >>

Deanna put it away, trying to figure out how to look without sneaking into the library or newspaper records and archives-

Newspaper.

Deanna smiled, hopping off the roof and reading the number on the door to memorise it even as she reworked her plans. She made a quicker than expected stop in K-Mart when she was walking back to get the food, buying some make-up as a cover and a now necessary set of pens and a steno pad small enough to fit against her clothes next to her tools, and wrote down the address for research purposes.

After getting the food- on the house, because it turned out the family that owned the store had been victims of Black Spot- she walked just far enough away to shift back into Deanna from Huntress and walk home, making it home by just after five.

“You’re early!” Mary said, thrilled. “Let me see what you got.”

“Um, here,” Deanna said, holding up the make-up bag so Mary could examine it. “But can I call the school first? They close at five thirty, and I gotta sign up for my other electives.”

“You asked me to waive them so you could watch Sam!” Mary said, surprised and excited Deanna had changed her mind on doing half of her school’s required minimums of two sports and two academic clubs and one personal fitness activity. “What clubs? Still Engineering, wrestling, and sharpshooting, right?”

“Yeah, but I wanna take journalism, too. I think I’d have fun on the school newspaper. And a friend said I’d really like track and field, since I’m the best at it in PE, so I’m gonna give it a short. I think I’m gonna add archery to the sharpshooting, too, since they offer both at the range,” Deanna explained. “I think the school’d prefer it if I did that. I may do fencing, too.”

“I’m proud of you, taking on extra work. Especially with your math load. I’ll waive the request to cut your workload and sign off on the other way, you taking extra burdens, but only if you keep an eye on Samantha and you make sure to keep at least your b’s.”

“I have to or they’ll make me drop auto shop and engineering club,” Deanna reminded her. “And I really, really want those. But I’ll do the newspaper stuff too, and you can put articles in our scrapbooks.”

‘ _And I can get free access to archives and police information on old unsolved mysteries_ ,’ she thought, smiling. “It means I have to give up those study halls you wanted me to have for journalism, though. You can’t join newspaper unless you’re either in journalism or photography, and I’m not giving up shop.”

Mary kissed her forehead. “Alright, you call the school and bring home the forms, and tomorrow I’ll sign you up and arrange for a carpool so Sam can attend your practices. Get ready for dinner, I’m working until after Sam’s bedtime tonight.”

Deanna nodded, setting out the food on the table after grabbing the cordless phone and calling up the main office about everything, Mary taking the phone from her to assure them that she approved of the extra workloads, and while she and Sam ate, she worked out a short idea for a column and a side-project for current events while she helped Sam with her homework. The plan was to work on cold cases as human interest pieces, and to secretly solve them on her own if they looked like Caretaker problems.

She’d do this right.

Her first day of journalism class was two days after agreeing to sign up, and Brian was furious she’d suggested cold cases as her niche after requesting and being assigned what turned out to be his section of human interest stories. “ _Everyone_ knows Caretakers are the ones who figure those out! The missing people all turn out to be monster food and casualties!” he said.

“Well they can’t _all_ be,” she said flatly. ‘ _Otherwise there’d be no reason for me to be active at all._ ’

“You should do something that people are actually interested in for the human interest section,” he scoffed, opening a portfolio and showing her the photo he’d taken of her hunting the night before- she’d been following a car from the haunted road, trying to figure it out. “I’m doing an expose on who she is!”

“That doesn’t seem like a really creepy invasion of privacy to you? Besides, we’re not conflicting. We’re doing two different types of human interest. Yours involves stalking and interfering with someone’s Caretaker mission, and mine involves trying to figure out missing people and old murders.” She winked at him. “Different reasons to wear the same ribbon, right?”

Every journalism elective student was wearing a red ribbon either as a headband, a hair tie, a wristband, or a choker. Huntress hadn’t done much the past two days- a few photos with the grateful Hsieh family and the residents of the retirement home, and some uneventful patrols and car chases- but somehow she’d been speculative news for the entire time over things like the missing persons cases and any unusual deaths or even Black Spot anymore. Fortune had mentioned she was still national coverage, because apparently Fortune read several major newspapers daily, and besides, if the _Chicago Sun-Tribune_ had it and it wasn’t a story about Illinois, eventually it would show up in the other major outlets- and in this case, eventually had been by Thursday.

Brian sure had a bunch of competition.

“I’m going to the police station after school,” Deanna told him. “To get old cases for my report. You can come and see if they have Huntress stuff, since I don’t have a pass yet.”

“So you’re seriously gonna look for cold cases?”

Deanna shrugged. “And maybe stuff like, ghost stories, campfire tales, urban legends. _Weekly World News_ type stuff. Local versions, though.”

Brian laughed, sharp and shrill. “Then we’re not going to the police station after school, we’re going somewhere else first!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“If you buy me lunch, I’ll take you to where to get the best scoops on the local weird,” he promised, pulling out a scrapbook from his backpack. “The private reserve, if you will.”

“I will,” Deanna grinned. “We only have thirty minutes for lunch, though.”

“It’s fine, we have an hour now,” Brian reminded her. “And it’s not like anyone’ll care if we’re late for pottery.”

“I’ve got metal shop after this,” Deanna corrected him as she packed up anyway. “And it’s one of my favourite classes.”

“Really? You? In metal shop?”

“Yeah, my dad was a mechanic, we used to work on cars together, so I love stuff like that, and it’s a required dual-class for my auto shop elective.” Deanna really had built her entire schedule around being able to take that class before high school. “And besides, aren’t you like in love with Huntress? She does metal stuff.”

“Yeah, Huntress, sure. But we’ve been in the same classes since pre-K. I’ve known you my whole life, Deanna, and I never knew you did that sort of thing. That’s cool. Here, we sign out like this, and get some passes saying we’re doing a report.”

“Wouldn’t they get mad we’re middle schoolers doing this?”

Brian grinned. “You just gotta pretend there’s an adult with you. I usually say we’re meeting my mom since she works near here,” he said in hushed tones when the teachers were turned away. “As long as we’re back in time, we’re fine- we tell the school we’re doing stuff around the neighbourhood, we sneak off.”

“I think, of all her fans, Huntress would actually like a guy like you,” Deanna said with a sincerity Brian would never know. “I’ve known you my whole life, Brian, I never knew you did that sort of thing. It’s cool.” Brian laughed and nodded, getting the passes from the office, then handing Deanna hers.

“It’s actually pretty close, so we didn’t lie as much as you’d think we did,” Brian explained. “And you can buy me food here! It’s a joint building.”

“Oh!” Deanna said, recognising the place. “Roadhouse bar and grill, yeah! I’ve been here a lot. They have the best burgers in town that aren’t homemade.” After pie, hamburgers were Deanna’s favourite food, and she had fun cooking them in the warmer months.

“Well, we’re going in this half,” Brian said, pointing at the window and the painted on designs, faded and ornate. “That thing in the corner means something. I asked Ellen at the bar, she said they’re old hunters signs, but that’s all I know.”

Deanna touched it lightly.

She knew. The previous life, Huntress had invented them to help communicate in silence.

Why had she needed to do that, though? Silent from who, or what? And if it was so important, why was it still being used, but not common knowledge?

“So what’s in here?” she asked, fully aware it would be supplies and information.

“Archives,” Brian said, pulling out a spare key. “Old newspaper archives. They’re organised really weird, too. There’s dates, but instead of in categories like obits or sports, it’s in things like, missing persons, rumours, deaths. Not obits, but, death itself. What’re you looking for? I’ll help you figure out the system.”

“I don’t know. Is there anything about places?”

“Yeah, there’s a concordance for that,” Brian said, pulling it off the front desk. “As long as it’s within a few hours of here, at least.”

Deanna pulled out her notebook and looked up the address- a double homicide, followed by a suicide. She pulled down the article in question, along with a few scribbled notes. “‘Not demonic. House not haunted. Murder/suicide due to late onset post-partum depression and temporary insanity due to husband’s affair-’ What the heck? This is the weirdest list I’ve ever read!”

“Toldja,” Brian said. “So what are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. I just heard a rumour about a house being haunted.”

“Oh. You want ghost stories? There’s easier ones than some haunted house. Like, for example, there’s a ghost story I can confirm personally out about a half mile from my house,” Brian said, like she’d be interested. Deanna decided to half-listen, mostly concerned with figuring out the haunted house mystery of her own. “It’s at one of the old no longer used bridges that cross the river, cars get like. Taken over there. But there’s no-one in them, they’re just left there. And sometimes a woman walks around at night on the bridge, looking all sad. I’ve seen her, when my dad and I were playing flashlight tag once like, two years ago. Supposedly, she’s a ghost. She was just walking along the bridge, didn’t seem to even notice us, but it was weird because she was in her nightgown. I thought she might’ve been a sleepwalker except she was kinda far away from any houses.”

“What’s she look like?”

“Um, brown hair, or maybe black? She was kinda far off and it was years ago. She seemed really pretty.” He pointed at the picture in the article. “Actually, kinda like her, I think, if I’m not just projecting. How’d she kill herself?”

Deanna read on. “...She threw herself off a bridge… This is good! I can write something on this!” She copied notes down. “Now if I can just figure out where she’s buried, we’ll be set!”

“Why?” Brian asked, face suddenly ashen.

“To get a cool headstone picture,” Deanna lied smoothly. “Burgers?”

“Burgers, definitely. This is weird. You had an address in mind already?”

“Like I said, haunted house rumour. Houses have address. So yeah, I guess I did. Plus I wanted something really cool for my first piece, since I’m joining a few weeks late.” Deanna flipped the notebook shut with the air of a proud, Lois Lane-y journalist, and grinned. “My treat,” she promised. “This is great, thanks for bringing me here.”

Deanna worked on her newspaper article after school, still wearing her gym uniform as she did- she’d been so excited she hadn’t wanted to change out, and to be fair, they’d done light stuff that day so she wasn’t sweating much during Algebra- as she set it up for print, a nice, ghost story myth with a small black and white photo of her that, thankfully, didn’t look much like the newsfeed loops of Huntress. She turned it in and ducked out early, picking up Sam after her soccer practice and setting her to her homework while she cooked dinner and washed her uniform to take back to school the next day.

She then went to her room and locked the door. << _Tonight,_ >> she told Fortune. << _I’ve got it figured out. It’s a ghost of a widow who killed her kids. Well, she’s a ghost, the kids are probably ghosts too. I’m going to go see her- see if she’s dangerous._ >>

<< _All ghosts are dangerous, Huntress._ >>

<< _I’ll see._ >>

<< _Yes._ >>

Deanna scoffed. << _You’re really sarcastic, aren’t you?_ >>

<< _Most, myself included, would say dry._ >>

She scoffed again. << _Whatever._ >> She grabbed her books and went downstairs to help Sam, and to do her own. Since she upped her course load to add helpful stuff, she needed to keep her grades up to earn them. Maybe she’d be like Sam, become an A student.

Ugh. Worth it for auto shop, though.

She was standing on the bridge, waiting, no ghost woman in sight. She debated playing with the girders, just for fun, but decided the ghost wouldn’t like her messing with her bridge.

A pair of car lights flickered in the fog in the distance, heading towards the bridge.

Cars.

 _Cars_. There was a car that came up the street when she was nervous about the house. There were cars that kept getting abandoned around some bridge in town without drivers in the missing persons reports the news covered in ticker-feeds while showcasing her and the other Caretakers instead. And Brian said the ghost walked a bridge.

Was she hitchhiking?

Deanna watched in shock as a woman suddenly appeared out of the fog. She was on the wrong side of the railguards, standing still and just waiting as the lights came towards them.

She looked exactly like the woman in the photo. The ten year old photo.

Deanna could tell because the woman stopped watching the lights and looked right up at her, meeting her eyes as she dropped from the side of the bridge into the water below, without so much as a splash.

Deanna jumped down, looking over the railing into water for where she fell to see if it was more than just an echo of her death, when the car came closer. Speeding up as it came closer, in fact. Close enough now that Deanna could see there wasn’t a driver when she turned to look up.

And for some stupid reason, it was heading right for where she was leaning against the rails instead of staying on the road. And getting faster as it did it.

There were two options and she had maybe seconds to do either. Jump out of the way, or hope her threat to Henriksen about his car was true and she could control it.

She went for option three: both at the same time. She held hands outreached towards the car and willed herself to steer it, or even jerk it, a different direction, right before she had to jump.

If it worked, she didn’t know, because the car turned straight towards her right as she did leap, accidentally choosing to go backwards over the railing and into the water instead of a direction that involved staying dry. It was the right decision, because the car crashed through the railing exactly where she’d been and fell after her, and if she hadn’t swam aside once she noticed that it’d’ve landed directly on top of her instead of just next to her in the river. It sank faster than normal, and Deanna wondered if that had been part of the possession, to push her to the riverbed and drown her pinned under a car.

She dredged herself out of the river as the car continued to sink, relieved that she could shake her armour so that repelled off the mud it’d collected because she had no idea how to even get mud out of chainmail otherwise, but horrified because she’d have to use a whole bottle of shampoo on her hair. She stood defiantly, hands fisted at her sides like she was yelling at cops, and screamed up at the bridge, “You think this means I’m gonna _stop_ hunting you? That’s _literally_ my name, and I earned it _killing things like you_!”

Well.

Now she just had to. Walk home muddy.

Ew ew ew ew _ew_ ew ew. She started to hike up the slope of the riverbank, grateful that the Kansas River was a slow draining shallow riverbank, so it wasn’t too slippery. It wasn’t too much of a trek, once that was done, because even though it was a relatively less used bridge and a less dense part of town, there were still city lights to walk towards if she looked into the fog once she could see over the slope.

Lights that were getting closer, now that she paid attention. Four of them, two white, two yellow, with red behind them- “Oh, no,” she groaned, bracing herself to jump aside again. “No, no, no, don’t be another one.”

This time, however, the woman didn’t seem to notice her while she walked along the road, in front of the rails but on the opposite bank.

And the lights, headlights for certain now because Deanna watched his car drive by while she climbed, were slowing down until they came to a complete stop where she was. She continued to climb while she watched the driver talk to her before he opened the door for her to get in, then turned around and started driving back to Lawrence.

Deanna ran up the rest of the hill as fast as she could, waiting for it to pass, and used the momentum of the run to jump on the roof of the car. She almost slid off because of the mud and the car moving itself, but she planted her hand on the thankfully older, mixed steel bodied construction instead of the more recent trend towards fibreglass-only, car to keep it from denting, from making noise, and to wedge herself in tightly by taking the ends of the chain and melding them into the bonnet. The part of her that loved auto shop cringed, but it had to be done, and she focused on listening in since she was secure enough to not fall off.

“ _Take me home_ ,” the ghost whispered to the driver as she sat next to him, ethereal and echoing and jarring. She gave her address- the address. The haunted house she killed her children at.

The car parked in front of it, and Deanna realised with a shudder as she detached herself from the roof that they were _parking_. The ghost brought them over not to haunt the guy, but to seduce him. They going to have sex. Ghost sex. Right there. With Deanna on the roof, not that they knew that.

Ugh that was grosser than waist-length _mud_. She was getting off right now, ew ew ew, no ghost sex for Deanna’s innocent eyes and ears.

Except the woman muttered something, right as Deanna was detaching the chain, about how she could never go home.

But she was home.

Wasn’t she? There had to be more to it, something Deanna was…

Was it that _simple_ all along?

“Trust your instincts, Deanna,” she mumbled, kneeling on the roof of the car and begging the car to drive. She knew how cars worked, and there were so many little parts that were made of steel that just needed the slightest tweaks to get it to go without actually doing anything visible inside the car- all she had to do was turn the axles a bit, move the gears just a little bit to neutral, crouch down a bit to brace for impact, activate the flints in the sparkplugs…

 _And push_.

And why not, just for fun, push those gas pedal pistons down all the way, pedal to the metal like one day she was gonna do in her car-

One

Two

Three

Five feet high and flung in an arc as she was launched forward through the air, this time landing hard and skidding as she held her arms up to protect her face- but held her hands with her fingers outstretched and palms turned out instead of balled and on top of her ducked-down head. She told everything metal, everything with nails or screws or rebar in it, to drop from midair instead of fling in her direction, so that she ended up piled under the planks of wood and glass that had nothing she could grip. There were splinters and scrapes and bruises from it all, sure, but, nothing compared to metal cuts and and potential tetanus.

She climbed her way out of the pile, the driver of the car confused as he shoved back the airbag and got out himself, cursing and grumbling and kicking at wood.

The ghost stood in the living room, looking around at old family photos that the real estate agent must’ve kept for that furnished, homey look despite, you know, them being brutally murdered.

“Welcome home, bitch,” Deanna spat as she stood there, defiant and battered. “I told you I’d get you.”

“ _Mommy?_ ” another ethereal, echoey voice said from the top of the stairs.

The ghost looked horrified and guilty as the children came down the stairs, calling for their mother, who was looking up at them with wide, sad, haunted eyes.

Funny. All the people she’d murdered over the years, and it’s the first ones that got to her, huh? They came to her, and she started screaming as they hugged her, hellfire and aether dancing around as they sucked her into the ground, all three disappearing without a single sound besides the screams and a strange gurgle of water as it pooled up from the ground.

Deanna knew, just from the sudden shift in the air, the sudden weight lifting pressure, the fact that all that remained was a few small puddles of water where the children had stood.

This place was _purified_. Ghost kids killing their ghost murderer was better than salt and fire, no matter what Fortune suggested.

With everything else done here for her, she turned towards the driver, and intended victim. “So, you doing okay?”

“I think you ruined my car!” he yelped, like that was the problem of the evening. She’d taken the brunt of everything, the ungrateful dick, he didn’t have a single bruise and she’d made sure the nails and bars didn’t get to him, too.

She grinned, reaching out with her hand and touching him on the shoulder, two quick pats, and tweaked a bit. He was already worked up so she cooled him down and focused on making him slightly less than violently angry at her, to calm him down- she didn’t like the idea of how far the ability could go, especially with his prior state, but she was willing to try to make the general atmosphere a bit easier on both of them, she could do it. “If there’s one thing I’d actually enjoy about tonight, it’d be looking after that thing. Let me poke under the hood for a moment, I’ll have her _mint_. What is that, anyway, an 86, 87…? No, wait, that’s an ‘84 Impala! Why would you even _bother_ , 67 was their best year, oh, Chevrolet, what were you _thinking_ in the eighties...” She walked up and popped the hood, smirking as she said, “Don’t worry, I work on cars all the time. Everyone needs a hobby. Plus I can fix all the dents and stuff without even knowing anything about how it works, you saw all the stuff I can do.”

Another light appeared, and she turned suddenly, hair whipping in a wet slop that fell _disgustingly_ back against her back when it landed and making her yelp. “Who’s there?” she called out.

A guy in his pyjamas and holding a polaroid camera waved back at her from the gaping hole in the wall, and she groaned as he pulled a photo out of the slot. Deanna wasn’t vain, but the idea of photos of her, covered in mud and muck and cuts and bruises from an entire wall falling on her was a different story than catching her on a bad hair day or with too many freckles out. “You’re gonna seriously fix his car?” the guy asked, lowering his camera. He sounded friendly, and a little impressed, and like he respected her for taking the time out of her day.

“Yeah, why, you got something?” she gritted out as she squeezed out some of the mud.

“Actually, yeah,” he jerked his thumb back to his yard, where it was flooding. “Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.”

‘ _Stupid charity for stupid Sammy to have her stupid heroine,_ ’ Deanna grumbled under her breath as she told him she’d do it in a minute, and dove back into fixing the car first to put pleasure over business for the first time that evening.

“Huntress saved a guy from a ghost last night!” Brian was bragging loudly, a new set of newspaper clippings put into his scrapbooks and portfolios, which were open and spread out over the bleachers. “Apparently this ghost was a monster all along, too, and she only _looked_ like a ghost!”

“Look at that thing,” Chris, now with a red ribbon tied around his wrist like he was at a bus stop even if he wasn’t half as hot, said as he pulled one of the photos over. “That’s creepy but it’s like see-through, too! How’d they get this photo of the monster?”

“Huntress crashed the car across the street from someone who happened to be taking photos of some water main damage for insurance, and he ran over with the camera and snapped some shots through the window. It’s right here,” Brian handed over an interview clipping. Deanna had fixed his yard, too, right before begging to use his shower and like, all his shampoo. She’d been turned down due to said water main damage, which had been a simple fix but needed time to settle, since all she’d done was tell the metal to reattach itself where it had split apart then to shake off its own rust, the same way she told her armour to shake off mud and dirt. He gave her some lemonade that was pretty tart while she worked, and offered her a slice of apple pie after she was done, which was perfect because everyone should give her pie as a reward for doing simple metal stuff, she’d decided then and there.

He’d given her some shampoo, too, which was nice. She had dunked herself in a pool the next street over, getting out the mud and ringing out shampoo for like half an hour. When she got home after waiting to dry, she snuck in for a better shower, one that made it look like she’d decided to have one with her own scents of soap and shampoo. She air dried it on her bed in flannel pyjamas she’d shoved in the dryer while she’d showered, chatting to Fortune about her success while it dried. She told Fortune everything she’d wanted to know about her adventures, and then learned about La Llorona the Weeping Woman, and how she only targeted unfaithful men, and about how Fortune had stopped witches that evening, and what witches were like, all while she brushed out the tangles in her hair.

She’d been healed up by the shower without a scratch, even if they were only superficial cuts to start with from where wood had scraped her. Still, it helped, because the girl in the photos was cut up.

“Winchester!” the teacher said, blowing his whistle. “Since you’ve decided to join track and field, get up here and show us how to do a high jump properly this time, instead of gawking over that girl you’re all in love with!”

Deanna smiled, walking up to the pad and looking up at the bar.

_One_

_Two_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this came about because I had a weird magical girl itch that I figured a Sailor Moon rewatch for the first time in at least fifteen years could scratch. Jill's AU was in the back of my mind, sure, but it wasn't until the Sailor V backstory episode that it clicked that there was a whole history before Jill's story started.
> 
> And normally I'd've just shared a few jokes out over AIM with her then left it alone forever, but she's one of my best friends, and she was moving to the other side of the world within two weeks of when I watched it. And considering that she took the time most days to call me, even if just to vent or to talk about fandom wank and raves, when I'm a recovering agoraphobe who is in a trapped situation, I felt like I owed her something sort of special.
> 
> I don't think you understand how much you helped me out.
> 
> In a completely different thing: Aside from the obvious research notes (Supernatural and the Sailor V manga), I spent most of this fic writing with Bob's Burgers of all things in the background, but the rare times I DID use music, I tried to keep it to Dean's classic rock only. So while I listened to the full albums of these songs, and others, here's a list of the songs I played multiple times because I felt they were the most fitting:
> 
> Playlist for Chapter 1  
> Saved by Zero- the Fixx  
> Distant Early Warning- Rush  
> Gone Hollywood- Supertramp  
> Green Eyed Lady- Sugarloaf  
> Ready for Love- Bad Company  
> Shattered- The Rolling Stones


End file.
